


Orpheus

by Sirifel



Series: A Triptych Of Myth [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Strap in kids, TLJ Continuation, also Rey gets drunk, we're gonna balance the Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-11 03:02:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15306021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sirifel/pseuds/Sirifel
Summary: Orpheus journeyed into the underworld and challenged its god for the life of his beloved.She thought he was saved, but the Dark Side still has its hooks in Ben Solo. After helping the Resistance win a major victory, he departs in the night, leaving Rey behind without a word. Frantic, she searches for a clue to his location. Her only hope is to catch him before he makes another irreparable mistake.





	1. Chapter 1

"I'm never gonna get used to them being here." Jessika Pava indicated the Stormtroopers who sat two tables over. "I know they're on our side, but they're still..."

Finn looked hurt—rightfully so, in Rey’s opinion. "So was I."

"Yeah," Jess waved him off, "but you don't still dress like one."

"It doesn't matter how they dress," Rose Tico mumbled, visibly fighting down her own shyness in order to come to the troopers’ defense. "Just that they're on our side."

"Still, though..." but Jess was realizing that she had picked the wrong table for her argument. She trailed off, discontent, and sipped her drink.

In the ensuing silence, Rey's thoughts drifted. She had not heard from Ben since his departure. The Force had not connected them in spite of her efforts to direct it, and she hadn't tried to contact him by more traditional means for fear of being intercepted.

She'd spent the first day brooding over Luke's books, the second day unable to do anything but pace and mope and prod at the silent wall of the Force that divided her from him. From the third day on, she had tried to keep busy, falling back into the same routines that she’d followed in the weeks after Crait.

The same routines that had defined most of her life.

She worked and she waited.

"Rey?"

"Hmm?"

"What do you think?" It was Rose asking.

Rey tried to remember what she was expected to have a thought about, but the last part of the conversation had slipped by her. It brought a downward twist to her lips. She would never have let herself be so distracted in a crowd on Jakku. "About what?" She hazarded.

"The Stormtroopers."

"Oh." She'd been hoping they were done with that topic. "I... I think you're right." An ally was an ally no matter what they looked like, she reasoned to herself, and she thought of Ben still, garbed in black, scarlet saber drawn against Snoke's guards. Grimacing, she banished the memory as quickly as she’d summoned it and tried to wash out the ache it left behind with another mouthful of Corellian rum. Rey had never been especially fond of drinking. It wasn't something she could afford on Jakku, in more ways than one, and there was the memory of her parents... A bitter truth she had pretended to be a dream. She was still coming to terms with that. for the time being, though, she was at a party and she planned to make the most of it.

‘Making the most of it' amounted to little more than drinking away her woes for an hour or two.

"At least they have armor," Rose went on, apparently determined to win the debate. "Most of us didn't even have that before."

"You can still take 'em out with a blaster," Jess argued, but it was plainly half-hearted.

Rose shrugged. "It's better than nothing."

"Either way," Finn cut in with a note of frustration, "we wouldn't be here if it weren't for them, and we _definitely_ wouldn't be able to afford this." He hefted the bottle of rum and topped off his drink and Rose's. Rey nudged her glass across the table and he dutifully filled it too. Jessika had barely touched hers.

"You okay?" Jess asked when Rey drained a good portion of her refill.

The rum was strong and just sweet enough to be palatable. Rey wasn't sure if she liked it, but the sensation of drinking it served to distract her as much as the fuzziness it provided. "I'm fine,” she said, but instead of deflecting attention as it was meant to, the answer only attracted more.

"Yeah, you _never_ drink this much," Finn chimed in. "You sure you're alright?" Rose nudged him with her elbow, but he seemed to miss the hint. "Is it because of... I mean, you know... him?"

"I said I'm fine." She wasn't, and it was, and they both knew that, but Rey was not in a mood to discuss it.

"Wait," Jess said, poised with her elbow on the table and her drink midway to her lips. "Are you talking about... Is that rumor _true?_ I thought..."

No. she wasn't going to have this conversation. Rey stood up and immediately stumbled over the leg of her chair, having to catch herself with a hand on the table.

"Woah, Rey—" Finn started, but it was Rose who moved first and caught Rey by the elbow. Startled by the physical contact, Rey pulled away sharply and managed not to become tangled in the furniture this time, but it was a close thing.

"I'm trying to help."

"I don't need help." It didn’t come out as firmly as she wanted it to, and Rose didn’t buy it.

"Do you want to leave?"

Rey bit her lip and looked away, too embarrassed, suddenly, to answer.

"Come on." Rose reached out again, this time waiting with her hand in the air. "I'll go with you."

Finn started to stand up again, but Rose caught his eye and shook her head. He didn't look happy about it, but he stayed where he was.

Rey let Rose take her arm.

"Shit," she heard Jess mutter before she was out of earshot. "I didn't mean to..."

.

Free from the stifling atmosphere of the cruiser's recreation lounge, Rey felt herself starting to sober. She was aware enough, at least, to calculate by their surroundings that Rose was leading her back to Rey's own quarters. Belatedly, the embarrassment flooded back and she almost turned herself around to go apologize. "Kriff...” she growled instead. “Drinking was a mistake."

"Yeah, it usually is."

 _"Why_ do people drink?" She'd heard reference to drowning one's sorrows is booze, but hers just floated and bobbed on the surface. All she’d managed to accomplish was making herself dizzy and disoriented on top of being miserable.

"I don't know, Rey," Rose said, sympathetic to the point of grating on Rey's raw nerves. "You probably shouldn't do it anymore."

Rey agreed, but wasn't in the mood to be told what to do, so she said nothing as Rose reached the door and keyed it open. Inside, Rose directed Rey to the bed, presumably expecting her to sit down, and then went to fill a cup of water.

The ship's tap was a luxury Rey had still to get used to. The sound of it roused her further. Sitting down to organize her thoughts, it felt like a storage box had spilled open inside her head and all manner of things were lying about, out of order and unguarded for anyone to pick up and walk away with.

Looking down at her own hands in her lap, Rey was startled again when Rose held the cup of water under her nose. Once she'd taken the cup—and proved that she wasn’t going to spill it—Rose asked, "do you wanna talk?"

Rey sipped her water. "No."

"Okay."

"I don't know why he left," Rey blurted, voice cracking on the second word out of her mouth. She hated it. It was pitiful, but once she'd started talking, she couldn't stop. "Not the ship, I mean, I know why he left, but I don't know why...Why he didn't take me." The first time, he had asked her to join him and she had refused. She didn't think it was the wrong decision, but even if it had been, it was hers. This time he hadn't given her even that much. "… I'm afraid he's going to do something stupid."

Rose had the grace not to agree with that out loud, but her expression was telling. "So what are you going to do?"

"I can't do anything."

"Okay. If you _could_ do something, what would you do?"

"I'd go after him!" It came out louder than Rey meant it to.

"And stop him?"

"No, I..." She caught herself, bit her lip and considered her words more carefully. "I'd try to find a way... I'd find a way to help him get what he wants without hurting anyone."

To Rey's surprise, Rose smiled. "I think that's best. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

Rey wasn’t sure how to respond to that offer, so she didn’t, but the words lifted some small part of the weight on her heart.

.

Finn came to check on her the next morning, somehow predicting the precise period of time when she would be awake and dressed but not yet ready to brave the mess hall for breakfast. "Rey, I'm sorry about last night.” He said it the moment she opened the door for him, as if it were a long-held breath.

Rey blinked up at him, processing it, and then her eyes fell on the tray of food in his hands. "It's okay." Stepping aside to let him enter, she inhaled the aroma of hot bread and felt herself revived, somewhat.

"I shouldn't have said what I said," he went on, searching for a place to put the tray. Rey ducked past him and cleared a portion of her desk, stacking datapads in a haphazard pile on the bed. "If I hadn't brought it up, Jess wouldn't have gone on, and—"

"Really, Finn, it's fine."

He shared one of his warm smiles with her and she felt better still. "Are you only saying that so I'll shut up and let you eat?"

"No," she said, and sat down to eat.

Finn laughed. "Rose made the bread. Did you know she can cook? She learned to when she and her sister had to take care of each other, before they joined the Resistance. She's _really_ good."

Rey swallowed her first bite a little too quickly in her hurry to assure Finn that she approved of his girlfriend. That earned an even brighter smile, and she knew she that she had bread crumbs in her teeth when she smiled back, but she couldn’t have cared less.

Then, as she had feared it would, his face fell. "You and... Kylo Ren."

"Ben,” she corrected, automatic, and then wished she hadn't.

"Yeah." Finn said nothing else for a while, so she chewed another piece of bread. He let her finish it before he asked, "you really care about him?"

She washed down the bread with a swig of luke-warm tea from the cup on her tray. "Yeah."

"You... I mean..." He was visibly struggling with the topic. "Like me and Rose?"

"Yeah," she said again, dully.

"How did that happen?"

Rey sighed and looked down at her food. She didn't feel hungry anymore. "I don't know. We talked. We understand each other."

"You understand Kylo Ren?" he echoed.

"Yes."

"I'm sorry, it's just..."

"I know." She did. She might not have believed it either if their positions were reversed.

Finn shuffled around a little more, looking for something to do with himself. Finally he sat down on the edge of her bed. "Is he a danger to us?"

"I don't know."

"But if there was a threat, you would tell us, right?"

"Of course I would.” There was wetness gathering in her eyes that she hoped he couldn’t see. “Finn, do you trust me?"

"Yeah, I do." He spoke without hesitation and Rey felt herself deflate, wondering where the conversation could go from there. Finn, apparently, had already thought about it. "Okay, what's he like?"

"Huh?" She had expected more questions, but not that one.

"What do you like about him?" The more he talked, the more he lost the awkward strain in his voice. He was apparently determined to make himself comfortable with the topic.

She thought carefully before she answered. "He's gentle." She was still looking down at her food, but she could feel Finn staring at her. "Not when he's fighting," she amended, and then grimaced again, remembering the last time Finn had seen him fight. "When he's with me, he's careful, like he thinks he'll hurt anything he touches."

"You pity him?"

"It's not just that."

"Sorry," he said. "I'm not questioning you." He was, a bit. "What I mean is, I believe you. I'm just trying to understand."

"I know." She did, but she'd still felt like the conversation was half-interrogation right up until that moment. Abruptly that discomfort was replaced by guilt. If she could trust no one else, she could trust Finn. That much, at least, she had to have faith in. "Did you know him when you were with the First Order?"

"No, not really. I saw him, but the Knights of Ren weren't part of the army. We thought they were mercenaries for Snoke, or assassins, or something like that."

"You didn't know?"

"There were rumors. Not a lot of truths."

She could believe that. Something else he'd said nagged at her, though. She had heard the title before. "Who are the Knights of Ren?"

"They were... warriors who obeyed Ren, I guess. They joined the First Order when he did. He didn't tell you?"

"No..." But she had seen them once—not in person, but in a vision. Ice crept up her spine. "Are they still alive?"

Finn shook his head sharply. "He killed them, or most of them. That’s what Cardinal’s people say. They were the ones who attacked him."

"Oh." Ben’s own knights—Luke's missing students, for all she knew. The betrayal he’d suffered had been a more personal one than she had realized.

"I guess I should stop blaming him," Finn mused, sounding a bit resigned. "For any of it." Rey looked back up at him, wondering what to say, but he kept talking before she could make up her mind. "The First Order got me too, after all. I didn't kill for them, but I had friends who did. That didn't make them bad people. Just on the wrong side."

"Did any of your friends help Cardinal?" She thought how nice it would be if Finn, at least, could reunite with someone he had lost.

"I don't know." He said it like a confession, like it was something to be ashamed of. "A lot of Stormtroopers did. I could ask for their numbers. I don't really know why I haven't."

"Are you scared you won't find them?"

"Yeah. Of course I am."

Rey took a slow breath, steeling herself for a mission. "Can I help you look?"

Finn's eyes widened. His sudden excitement was enough, almost to make her smile again. "Y-yeah. Sure. I'd like that."

"Okay.” She looked back down at her breakfast. Hungry or not, there were some lessons from Jakku that she would never unlearn. "After I finish this."

.

They did not find the friends he was looking for, but then they asked for other numbers—people he hadn’t known, but had heard of—and one after another, the numbers came up. They were younger recruits mostly, those with fewer years of indoctrination and those who still had most of their lives ahead of them. People who might have witnessed Finn's escape and been inspired.

Rey asked if he wanted to go talk to any of them and he said no, but he assured her that he would eventually, and he seemed satisfied with what they had found.

.

Each night since Ben's departure, she dreamed about the temple in the jungle, but never did her dreams tell her where to find the place or what to do if she did. By the eleventh day, she had scoured every star map and planet archive in the Resistance's library and the First Order database, or at least every one that looked remotely worthwhile. She would have been done with it sooner, but the tension between the Resistance and the defected First Order made people slow to attend her requests for access. It was a terrible kind of waiting.

And then, rather than finding no forested worlds with old Jedi ruins, she found too many. There was the moon of Yavin where the Rebellion had launched their assault on the first Death Star, and the moon of Endor where they had destroyed the second. There was a planet where Luke had built his Jedi school and another where he had found the map to Ahch-To. On Kashyyyk, Chewbacca’s homeworld, there were hints of old Jedi activity, while the jungles of Dromand Kaas had once been ruled by the Sith. It was frustrating, but not surprising. The Force, as she understood it, was both parent and child of nature, bound to life and generated by it. It made sense that planets rich with the Force would flourish with life as well. Rey just needed a way to narrow it down.

On the twelfth day, she found one.

After all of her digging through modern sources, it was one of the old Jedi texts that held the key. It had been one of the first she had translated. She was flipping through it to look at the hand-drawn sketches of old Jedi temples when one of them caught her eye.

The entrance looked different. There was no squat stone structure. The artist's rendition was of a simple slit sinking into a rocky hill. The writing described water-tight door seals made of flexible material, and the drawing seemed to reflect this. None of that was anything like the temple she had seen in her dreams, but on the opposite page was a map of the interior, and Rey knew those stairs and branching chambers intimately.

The description of the planet, however, brought her up short. Reading it again, she recalled the first time she had translated it. It had stuck in her memory amid all the rest because it depicted a desert so much like the one she had grown up in. According to the text, it was hotter than Jakku and arguably more perilous, known in particular for its large, carnivorous wildlife that burrowed beneath the sand. Although another world held the official honor of being the birthplace of the first Jedi, the desert planet was noted as the location of the first conscious connection with the Force. Something unique to that planet—her translation was unclear as to what— had opened the minds and altered the very genetics of the people who lived there, as well as those who came from elsewhere to experience it. According to the texts, something on that planet had made Force-awareness possible.

The name of the planet was also difficult to translate. The language used in the book did not mesh well with common aurebesh. After struggling with it for several extra minutes and flipping back and forth between other pages to compare, she determined that it was either Rachis or Rakis.

While the planet itself did not match what she was looking for, its temple had unquestionably the same downward-twisting, rootlike layout. If she could find the planet in a more up-to-date archive, there was a chance she could track the builders to her jungle world.

To begin, she went to the person she knew with the most extensive galactic-wide cultural knowledge.

She asked C-3PO.

"I'm a protocal droid, not a historian," he cautioned, "but I do believe that Rakis was another name for Arrakis, which played an early role in the foundation of the spice trade. Unfortunately, if that is the planet you're looking for, its culture and architecture have been assimilated by most space-faring factions in the galaxy."

Rey sighed. Of course it wouldn't have been that easy. Gnawing on her lip, she looked around the room in search of inspiration. "What if I go to Rakis? Do you think they'd have more information? A list of colonized planets, or..." she trailed off, thoughts too cluttered and stuffed with emotion to organize quickly enough into words.

"It is a possibility, although Arrakis has never held a large population. Multiple attempts at terraforming have ended in failure and tragedy. It is not a place I would care to visit."

"It's better than sitting around here, being useless.” She snapped the words, and then regretted her tone.

Instead of taking offense, C-3PO straightened his metal frame as if trying to make himself taller and said, "I assure you, Mistress Rey, you are far from useless. Why, your skill with droid mechanics is scarcely outmatched, to say nothing for your ability with the Force. I dare say—"

"Threepio?" Rey cut him off, warring between her fondness for him and her thin patience. "… I'm going to bring Ben back, and stop him from hurting anyone else. I think that's the most useful thing I can do."

"Ah..." the droid conceded. "You may be right."

"So how do I get to Rakis?"

"The route should already be in the Millennium Falcon's navicomputer," he said, recovering his air of pride. "I uploaded all of my regional data quite some time ago."

"Thanks, Threepio." Rey mustered a smile for him. "Hopefully this will pay off."

"I do hope so, Mistress."

.

Rey set out that day, having eaten a good meal, talked over the plan with Leia, and ran pre-flight checks on the Falcon with Chewie's help. She would have expected Chewbacca to come regardless of the mission, seeing as he preferred to stay with the freighter. Since, in this case, the incentive was rescuing his nephew—again—she had little doubt of it. In confirming that expected, he expressed also an interest in seeing the fabled spice planet. She couldn't imagine a wookiee being comfortable in a desert, but she was hardly going to argue.

The surprise came when Leia arrived to send her off... and C-3PO came trailing behind her.

"Where you're going, you may be dealing with isolated communities, and I have all the help I need right now,” said the General. “Our esteemed translator will do more good with you than with me."

There was no ignoring how much Leia herself had at stake in the mission, but the thoughtfulness and generosity still turned Rey's face red. It would be a while still before she was used to receiving unasked-for help. "Thank you. I mean, you're right. At least, I hope we'll have use for him. Thank you."

Leia smiled, patient and perhaps a little touched by the rambling response. "Thank you, Rey, and if you find him... give Ben my love."

That brought warmth to Rey's cheeks for an entirely different set of reasons. "I will."

The General took one step forward and Rey hurried back down the ramp, not wanting to make her climb it just for a hug. Chin on Rey's shoulder, arms firm around her, Leia murmured her trademark blessing of "may the Force be with you," and Rey, as usual, tried not to cry.

She would always hate goodbyes.

.

The flight to Arrakis entailed three stops to adjust trajectory followed by a particularly long stretch through an all-but-abandoned hyperspace lane, but at least they were moving. Going somewhere with a purpose, no matter how long it took, was infinitely better than waiting. Rey was good at waiting, and she had been proud of that fact. She knew all about biding her time and surviving from day to day. She'd had more practice at that than at anything else in her life.

If she could, she would have taken back every minute of it.

Hurtling between the stars on the fastest ship in the galaxy, Rey felt the weight of the last several days falling behind her, taking with it a little, also, of that which she had carried since Jakku. It was a slow process to shed the burden of those years. It lifted away like sand pulled by the wind, grain by grain, one thin layer at a time. It felt as endless as the desert, but there had been so much recently to make a difference. Every meal she didn't have to risk her life for, every night without hunger or cold, every welcoming smile on the face of a friend...

Rey had not known, on Jakku, how broken she was. She would not have been able to think about it and remain functional. In her new life, for the first time, she had that luxury. For the first time, she could feel… in depths and ways that she had long ago taught herself not to. The result had been more tears than she cared to admit, but ultimately, a tear at a time, she felt like she was mending.

.

Arrakis, when they reached it, was not at all what Rey had anticipated. She opened her mouth to say something, but there didn’t seem any point. Chewie and 3PO could see the same thing she saw. Leaning forward in her seat, she spared a moment to absorb the vivid verdancy of the planet, a globe of unbroken green. The Force was so thick she could almost see that too, and she was certain she could hear it. It was loud in her mind, throbbing against her like ocean waves, rhythmic and ceaseless and barely restrained, and there was something else there too—something that made her breath catch and her heart skitter. Somewhere in the vast green below, there was Ben.

He stood out like a beacon in the endless Force, but he was not a beacon of light. He was distinct in the brightness of the planet below because he was Dark, through and through. A singularity. A bottomless hole in the vibrant glow of the Force.

Her companions would not be able to sense him the way she did, but she couldn’t muster the words to explain. "Ben's there," was the best she could manage, in a tight, cracked voice, and then she was bringing the Falcon down through the atmosphere, leveling out above the trees, putting all of her focus on finding a way to the ground. She couldn't think about the darkness or what it might mean. It would distract her and unhinge her. She would get to him first and she would figure the rest out after.

She wasn't too late. She had to believe that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor crossover in this one if you knew what to look for. Then again, does it count as a crossover if George Lucas did it first?


	2. Chapter 2

The Darkness was with him and he was one with it. He was beyond human, as he had always known he would be. His consciousness extended to every corner of the galaxy, every place the Dark touched, and the Dark was everywhere. The Jedi had feared it. The Sith had drowned in it. They had all been wrong. There was no fear, no anger, no hatred here. There was not even passion. There was only power, and with it, there was purpose.

He had known, but he had not known. He had heard the call and he had followed it, followed it since he was a boy, but he had never imagined the way it would _feel._ For the first time in his life, there was no pain. There was no ache of loneliness, no stab of betrayal, no throbbing pang of regret. Not even his physical injuries hurt. All was eased in the absolute Darkness.

He wondered if his Grandfather had ever experienced this.

The Dark answered him—no.

He wondered how the Sith with all their knowledge had fallen so far from their purpose.

The Dark answered him again, reminded him of how easily he himself had been misguided, how emotion overpowered logic. He felt, almost, that pang of regret resurfacing, for much of the suffering borne and inflicted in pursuit of his goal had been unnecessary, but the Dark swept in again and washed regret away.

In the bleached-bone clarity left behind, he felt something else. The moment he had been waiting for was almost upon him. The event he had been shaped for from conception was about to begin.

Rey was coming.

He had held her in his mind's eye like a guiding star since he'd left. Now her presence blazed like the warmth of the sun. He felt it the moment she came out of hyperspace. He had a sense that it had taken her longer to catch up with him than it should have, but time was different in the Force. He could not remember whether he had been in the temple—in the Darkness—for days or merely for minutes. He remembered only vaguely the time between leaving Rey and reaching his destination, and only then because he recalled the tasteless meals and the struggle to sleep.

Now, as Rey drew nearer, time came back to him, unwinding itself like a string pinched at both ends and pulled tight. The solidity of physical space reasserted itself. He felt again the fatigue of his mortal body and the ache and itch of healing wounds. Then, as his own physical awareness returned, so did his connection to Rey. An echo. A half-seen reflection on transparisteel. He felt the shape of her mind first, and then the ghostly impression of her surroundings. She was moving quickly, running, arms rising one and then the other to push fern-like undergrowth out of her way. He could feel other lives around her—Chewbacca closely following, converging now and then to help clear her path. He felt the wildlife of the forest, most of it small, insects and amphibians lurking amid the tree roots. If she kept on as loudly as she was going, however, she would attract the interest of larger things before long.

Arrakis was no longer home to the great sandworms of legend, but it had always been a planet of ferocity. The out-of-control terraforming event responsible for its current state had not changed the planet’s spirit.

Alarm spiked from the echo of Rey ‘s awareness. The tone of her desperation changed. The inevitable had happened.

He felt the fight more than he saw it. He felt the way Rey's muscles corded, the way she went low to put herself on the beast's level. He felt, behind her, the reverberation of Chewbacca's roar, and through Rey’s senses, he felt the beast hesitate, felt it doubt, but he felt also its driving hunger.

Rey ignited her saberstaff and the kyber crystal sang. At this show of bright aggression, the beast decided—fatally—that offense was its best defense.

Ben felt the shout ripped from Rey's throat. He flinched at the sudden, hot pain in her arm. He felt the sober satisfaction of victory, the spill of darkness like blood as a life ended. He felt Rey shudder, felt the lightsaber extinguished, and felt her gather herself up to run again.

The Dark pulled him back down as he waited, breath bated. It held him in its arms and eased his racing heart, whispered in his ear that he was almost there.

Rey was sweat-drenched and pale when she came at last to the bottom of the switchback stairs, out of breath and streaked crimson with her own blood when she stepped into the final chamber. Chewbacca, by contrast, seemed too composed, adapted as he was to arboreal environments.

Ben ignored his wookiee uncle. Rey was the one he needed.

"Ben!" She sounded like his mother when she shouted. "What are you doing?" There was an aura of anger and fear around her. It pricked at him like needles.

"What do you see?" he asked her.

This time there was pain in her voice. "Your eyes..."

"Tell me."

This time there was horror. "They're black."

He could still feel that shadow-impression of her awareness, but he asked for more, nudged against the walls of her mind.

She let him in.

Through Rey's eyes, he saw himself, ragged, hair lank and tangled, face pale except for the bruise-purple skin around his scar. He was floating, boots a good six inches above a spot in the precise center of the room. As she had told him, his eyes were black, pupil, iris, and sclera all as dark as the void.

Some deep, infantile part of him balked in terror and he was abruptly back in his own head. Composing himself, he met Rey's eyes and, ceremoniously, he extended his right hand. "Join me."

"No." Rey was shaking her head, slowly, minutely, as much in denial of what she saw as in refusal of his command. "Ben, whatever you're doing, stop."

"I can't."

The breath she sucked in sounded like a sob. "Then tell me how to help."

"Join me."

"No."

Chewbacca butted into the conversation with a growl, demanding an explanation.

"She is a vessel of the Light," Ben obliged. "I need her."

Chewbacca, baring his teeth, asked if Ben meant to extinguish her.

"No." He felt at once like laughing and shouting at the suggestion. If his purpose had required him to destroy her, he would have refused it. "There must be balance."

Rey took another step closer. She was crying openly now. "You're not making sense. Please, Ben..."

For her, he tried to soften his voice, to curb the intensity of his expression. He needed her to understand. "Reach out. Feel it. This is the reason for everything. This is how it has to be. We were born for this."

She was silent. He could map the struggle on her face, the denial, but she had lost the ability to believe her own lies. He had broken that habit for her when Snoke died.

"Now, Rey." His throat felt tight, half-strangling the words as they came. The impatient Darkness pressed in around him.

The first time he had asked her, they had been on Starkiller Base, while the earth split and crumbled beneath their feet. The second time had been in Snoke's throne room, surrounded by fire and the dead. Now he asked her for the third time, in a place full of darkness and full of life, and he felt it when she made up her mind.

Chewbacca gave a rumble of protest when Rey moved, so she paused, looked back at him, and said, "it's okay."

Ben prepared for interference, but it didn't come. Chewbacca nodded. Chewbacca waited. He trusted Rey.

She faced Ben again. Five more steps brought her within arm's length and she reached for him. He raised his hand to meet hers—

—and reality unfolded before them.

In a rushing, heart-stopping instant, the galaxy laid itself out at their feet, as neat and clearly defined as a strategy holo. Every star, every planet, every supernova and speck of dust was cast in perfect, infinite detail. Ben knew that with only a thought, he could have looked into the Resistance ship and seen his mother, or peeked through the window of his childhood home. He could have folded time itself and seen his grandfather alive and walking, or plucked a flower from the mountain foothills of Alderaan.

He was one with the Force and he was the Force, all of it, stretched like a swath of fabric from the bright birth of the universe to its end.

And he was not alone.

The Force was raging like a storm in spring, like hot air and cold crashing into each other and tearing up everything in their wake. The Light and the Dark were in contest, and Rey rode at the head of the charge. On a wave, she came, breaking up against Ben's wall of shadow, eroding a little of it away each time she struck.

 _Not right,_ he heard her say-think-feel. _Not right. This isn't right. This is wrong._

The Dark surged, sensing an opening. Ben restrained it—restrained himself. For too long he had fought to maintain the Darkness within him, to guard it against the temptation of the Light. Each time he succumbed to the Light, his hold on the Darkness weakened. If he lost the will to control it, it would overrun him. It would drive him mad and leave him broken. His destiny—his grandfather's prophecy—would remain unfulfilled.

He had come so far at such a high cost. He only had to hold on a little longer.

Rey still didn't understand. That was clear in the way she fought him. Her use of the Light was more instinct than intent, but all the more powerful for that. Rather than fighting her own nature and desire, she let it guide her. Where Ben was conflicted, she was not. She was singular in her purpose, clawing, pushing, flailing against the Darkness around him—trying to defeat it when what she needed to do was accept it. He should have explained it to her more clearly. He had tried to, back on the Falcon, but the words had failed to come. He should have tried harder.

He tried now, wrenching open the bond between them and attempting to shove the information through by brute force, except it wouldn't go. Their two sides were opposed and divided. Hard, unbroken edges stood in his way, a barricade across the bridge between their minds. It was no wonder, then, that he hadn't been able to connect with her since his departure. Rey was right about one thing; this was wrong. This wasn't the way the Force was supposed to be.

She battered at him still, screaming, believing him imprisoned and herself his rescuer. Her fear and passion sunk hooks into his heart, made him falter, nearly pulled him off his feet. He wanted terribly to let it. He wanted to go to her, to let her touch him—to be held. To be safe. He could let it all be over and forsake the Darkness for good, except it would not be over, and if he surrendered now, then it would all have been for nothing.

He had to make her see.

In what felt like a final effort, Ben pulled inward, shrunk away from the expanse of the universe. He made his awareness small again, and he took Rey down with him.

They were not back in the temple chamber. They were nowhere. Enveloping them was the hollow, soundless darkness that came not with the Dark Side of the Force, but with nothingness. Under other circumstances it would have been a nightmare place, devoid of purpose or of meaning, but Rey stood before him, lit as if by daylight, and she made all the difference.

She was tear-streaked and flushed, a shudder to her breath that came not just from exertion. She had been fighting the battle of her life to get to him and now she stood dumbfounded, knowing that she had not broken through—knowing that he had let her in, and yet that he still carried the Darkness with him.

Tentative, her hand twitched, an aborted attempt to reach for him.

"Rey."

"Ben?"

He did not yet offer his own hand to her again. She had to listen first. "I need your help."

She gave a quiet sob, no doubt misreading his standoffishness. "I'm trying."

"Not that way."

"What do you need me to do?" Though wet with tears, her eyes were resolute. The more she wrapped herself up in the notion of saving him, the harder it became to convince her of the truth.

"I need you to let me finish this."

She was shaking her head, more a gesture of disbelief than of negation. "No, Ben... Whatever you think you're doing... whatever your destiny is, it isn't this. Please come back with me."

"You're wrong." He didn't blame her for the mistake. How could he? It was the fault of the Jedi and their legacy. All of them had been so wrong.

"Please, Ben..."

"Everything I've done,” he said softly, “every sacrifice... Han Solo, the academy... everything—it was all for this."

"You have to let go of it."

"Rey, listen—"

"You were misguided. Snoke lied to you. It doesn't matter what you've done, you can still turn back. Start over. Let the past die. That's what you said to me."

"Stop."

"I love you,” she said.

It nearly broke him. Of all the times to confess... but she was frantic, trying everything. He couldn't count on the sentiment to last when this was over, nor could he afford to let it distract him or derail their conversation. The most important thing was to convince her.

He had always been bad with words. All his life he had failed to say what he meant, to express a problem without being misunderstood. It had happened with his parents, his uncles (all three of them), and with Rey.

He had failed over and over, and too often he had given up, but it had never been more integral to try again than it was now. "You're not listening." By the look on her face, it was not the response she was expecting. "This isn't about the Darkness. I need your help to bring balance."

She faltered. She blinked. "Balance?"

"You and I,” he went on, riding a surge of confidence. “We're vessels. Light and Darkness. I had to let it in. I had to bring it here. This is where it has to be."

"Everything you did... for balance?"

She had pulled back her hand, uncertain. Now he extended his. "Let me show you."

Rey hesitated, but he could see her desire to trust. She had already made the choice once, in the temple. Now, in this void at the eye of the storm—at the war-front between Light and Darkness, she made it again.

Her hand touched his.

The Light was blinding. It seared through the back of his eyes. When he opened his mouth to scream, it climbed down his throat, scorched him raw, scoured him clean, boiling oil in every vein. Then, just as suddenly, it retreated, ripping and tearing its way free, taking with it his long-nurtured Darkness, and Light and Darkness both flowed back into Rey.

For one second drawn out into breathless eternity, there was stillness. Rey stood before him, god-like, her body floating, suspended above the floor as his was. Her head was tilted back, mouth slack, and her eyes shone like twin suns.

Then came a second flash, a strike of the Force like a durasteel wall. He didn't feel himself fall, but when his vision cleared, he was on the ground. He tried to move, but his body fought him, pain forcing him down. He could only lay where he was and take short, gasping breaths, trying to scrape together his scattered senses.

Some immeasurable time later—or perhaps after only a minute or two—there was movement to his right, too far away to reach. There was the sound of Rey's breathing and the familiar soft shuffle as Chewbacca went warily to her side, always too quiet for someone his size.

"Ben?" The call was weak, uncertain, and he wasn't sure if she was speaking to him directly or to Chewie, but Chewie was the one who answered.

"Help me to him," she requested, voice a weary whisper, and Ben heard the rustle of fur and fabric and the ungainly footfalls as Rey tried to stand, failed, and was lifted into Chewbacca’s sturdy arms.

The fatigue was incapacitating. Ben couldn't make his own head turn to look, but he could hear it when Rey dropped to the smooth stone floor nearby. He could hear her pull herself closer. Then, blissfully, he could feel the warm pressure of her hand on his chest.

"Ben?" she asked again.

He blinked away the unwelcome wetness in his eyes and found his breath coming a little easier. "Rey."

"What happened?" For all of the weariness it carried, there was something new to her voice… a serenity beyond that which he had ever heard from human tongue. Curiosity without concern. Resignation without hopelessness.

"Feel," he told her, and could manage no more.

The Force fluttered around her, reacting as she examined it. "Balance," she observed.

Ben didn't try to answer. Instead he found, somewhere, the strength to move his arms, to wrap them around her as she leaned over him, to pull her down atop him and to hold her close.

.

Chewbacca watched over them while they rested. He helped them drink from Rey's canteen of water. He emptied his supply bag and folded it, slipping it under Ben's head to spare him the headache of the stone floor.

Ben wasn’t sure, after the fact, whether he had dozed off or simply let his mind wander too far to be aware of his body, Rey's presence and weight acting like a sedative. When he came back to himself, she was up again, looking down at him with his name on her lips.

When his eyes found hers, she said, "you should get up,” and then she scooted back a bit, as if to get out of his way. She took her warmth with her, and that, more than anything, compelled him to try. Bracing both palms on the floor, he levered himself up, and though he still felt the downward pull of exhaustion, it was easier to move than he expected. Rey smiled at him, but it was quick to vanish. "Are you alright?"

"Are you?"

"I think so."

"I'm sorry."

To that, she didn't answer, and when he tried, he could not read her through the bond. Testing it, he found his awareness of the Force blinded, washed out by a bright static. It would clear in time, he thought, but until it did, he had only his mortal senses to go by.

For lack of the Force, he tried talking more. "I shouldn't have left the way I did."

Her gaze fell.

"I should have talked to you."

She didn’t look up again, but she nodded.

"Forgive me?" The words tasted strange in his mouth, but he had waited a long time to say them.

Rey's teeth caught and pinched her bottom lip. Ben ignored the thrum it evoked down his spine. He ignored, for now, the desire to touch. After a moment's pause, Rey nodded again. As if in afterthought, she said it aloud. "I forgive you."

Ben sat still and soaked it in. It might have been the first time those words had been spoken to him.

Then it was _Rey_ who touched _him,_ moving as if she couldn't wait any longer, reaching out to cup his cheek in her palm, sinking in to kiss him. Ben was caught airless, floundering, barely able to steady himself and return the gesture. He did, though, and after a clack of teeth and a confusion of noses, they found something of a rhythm, and the Force unfurled like a blossom, opening up bright and clear around them.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be concluded in _Eros_


End file.
